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Hussein Is Sentenced
As the War Rages On

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The guilty verdict and sentencing of Saddam Hussein -- to a hanging, no less -- come amid a war that has evolved far beyond the brief conflict aimed at ousting a remorseless dictatorship and a man who was a villain to nearly all but his Sunni supporters. And if yesterday's relatively suspenseless hearing was a milestone of sorts for Iraq, there is little indication it marks any kind of turning point.

Concluding what was to have been the first of several trials, Mr. Hussein was found guilty of crimes against humanity for torture, forced deportation and the execution of 148 Shiite Iraqis from the city of Dujail following a 1982 assassination attempt as he drove near the city. His half brother and one-time chief of the Mukhabarat secret police, Barzan Ibrahim, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of the court that sentenced the Dujailis to death, were also sent to the gallows, while former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan got life imprisonment and a local Baath Party official was acquitted.

In tune with a procedure whose courtroom theatrics frequently injected farce into the tragic story portrayed in witnesses' testimony, Mr. Hussein sought to shout down Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman as the verdicts were read. "You can't decide. You are slaves. God is great. Life is for us and death for our enemies. Life for the nation, death for the enemies of our nation," he barked, as guards pinned down his arms, according to the Times of London. Mr. Rahman shouted over Mr. Hussein: "The court has decided to sentence Saddam Hussein al-Majid to death by hanging until he is dead." and Mr. Hussein yelled back: "To hell with you!" An automatic appeal of the sentence may delay it, but Iraqi judicial officials tell the New York Times that despite pending trials on a broad array of other war crimes, Mr. Hussein could hang within months. This process may be swayed by the current Iraqi government, which has shown no reluctance to try to influence the judges, as the Times notes.

Today in Baghdad, the Interior Ministry said that Baghdad and two restive Sunni provinces will stay under a 24-hour curfew, even as rejoicing Shiites and angry Sunnis took to the streets in response to the verdicts. Like so much else in Iraq these days, the verdicts were viewed through the prism of sectarianism with roots in the Hussein era. "In the south, a Shiite Muslim father held aloft the tiny, shrouded remains of a young son killed long ago during Hussein's armed campaign against the majority sect. The father danced with his son's bones in the street among celebrating crowds, elated at the news," the Washington Post reports. "In the north, a Sunni Arab man in Hussein's home city strapped an explosives belt around his waist and vowed to avenge the death penalty handed to the former dictator."

With violence in Iraq at its highest level in years -- 50 bodies were discovered yesterday, most of them in Baghdad, the Associated Press reports -- The Wall Street Journal says the death sentence could deepen sectarian antipathy and inflame the anti-American insurgency. And if this war-crimes trial and process seemed problematic -- with security and procedural issues that cast doubt on its credibility among international legal experts, though some tell the New York Times the verdicts seem to bear out the evidence -- the results may leave even some of those who hated Mr. Hussein dissatisfied. War-crimes trials are about justice, but not just for the accused and his victims. They are also about settling scores so that peoples on either side of a conflict can move forward with a sense that historical justice has been done. The verdict on that question is likely to be judged years from now by what happens outside the Green Zone court room that tried Mr. Hussein.

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A Silent Flyer for the Jet Set The desired stealth is aimed at commercial success rather than military advantage, but the technological aims of the "Silent Aircraft Initiative" are no less fascinating. American and British researchers from academia and the aerospace industry are scheduled to hold a news conference at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London to make public a conceptual design for a plane devised to "cut through the air with practically no sound bothering those below," the Associated Press reports. The design "would blend fuselage and wings together so that the entire airframe provides lift -- an approach that to date has been confined largely to payload-carrying military aircraft such as long-range bombers," the AP says. Boeing, Rolls Royce, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cambridge University are among the participants in the project, which has drawn plenty of commercial interest, since noise pollution is one of the biggest complaints about aircraft and the siting of airports. But actual development of an aircraft isn't expected before 2030.

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Also of Note&hellip;USA Today: Democrats, poised to score gains in the Senate, are struggling to pull ahead in the final seat they need to win control, with challengers leading Republican incumbents -- in some cases narrowly -- in Missouri, Montana and Rhode Island, but Republicans in Tennessee and Virginia now leading by three percentage points among likely voters, according to the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Polls.

Bloomberg: Goldman Sachs Group, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers Holdings and Bear Stearns are about to reward their 173,000 employees with $36 billion of bonuses, a 30% increase from last year's record, and it doesn't include the billions more that will be paid out by Citigroup, Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase -- the three largest U.S. banks -- as well as the hundreds of hedge funds and private-equity firms that constitute the financial industry.

Wall Street Journal: While the world seems awash in risk -- nuclear rumblings in North Korea, bloodshed in Iraq, bird-flu scares, terrorism, hurricanes, corporate scandals, political uncertainty and more -- one barometer of risk, the price of insurance, indicates that many facets of life and business like car and home ownership are getting less risky.

Financial Times: Novartis is set to become one of the first global pharmaceuticals companies to conduct basic scientific research in China, by investing $100 million in a new drug-discovery facility in Shanghai focused initially on discovering medicines to treat cancers caused by infections -- a considerable proportion of the cancer cases diagnosed in China

Hollywood Reporter: CBS has hired Quincy Smith, a prolific merger-and-acquisition player from Allen & Co. to take over the newly named CBS Interactive and create a new digital strategy for the network, and he says CBS is interested in acquiring companies with the potential to be the next generation of YouTubes.

Ad Age: Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley told analysts that the world's biggest marketer is "reallocating investments" in its communications budget, but what he didn't add is that print advertising is now the workhorse carrying a larger load while the share of TV ad spending has fallen.

Quote of the Day "I do charity work, but I don't do charity work for major studios," actor Russell Crowe said, when asked by reporters why he had dropped out of negotiations to star in a new movie being directed by Baz Luhrmann and produced by 20th Century Fox, at a time when movie and television studios, facing escalating budgets, rampant piracy and the uncertain future of new media, are demanding concessions from talent, as the New York Times reports.

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OTHER VOICES: See news or features worth sharing with fellow readers? Send a summary of the article and a Web link to tmbreaders@wsj.com. We'll include some of the most interesting submissions in future columns.